


Maybe A Little Family

by returntosaturn



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 00:57:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8946781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/returntosaturn/pseuds/returntosaturn
Summary: But today is a Saturday, a day she is free from any of the ambassadorial work she has been sent here for. Ordinarily, she’d wake early and ring the bell of their little house just in time for tea. This particular Saturday, however, is not ordinary by any means, for it is Credence’s seventeenth birthday."// AU in which Credence lives and Newt cares for him. Tina visits, and thinks perhaps she could make the visit permanent.





	

London, April, 1928

Smiling has become a new trait of his, small and almost always directed to the ground. But in the three months she has been here, with the two of them, Credence has smiled more than she’d expect from someone of his character. It’s always soft, tucked tightly to the corner of his mouth, as if he wanted to hide it. She first spotted it when Newt helped him to feed the mooncalfs their treats. He’d grinned at the way they hopped about anxiously, craning their long necks for a chance at the bubbly little snacks.

He’s a bit broader in the shoulders, she thinks, when the both met her at the docks in Southampton. His hair is longer, touching his collar, his complexion brighter. Maybe it is that he is being fed properly, or maybe it’s that he feels he doesn’t have to cower anymore. Tina hoped it was both. Newt had taken him to the countryside for several months; a quiet place that Credence could rest and understand his magic. Newt wrote her, when she was still in America, that it would be a long road, and things might not ever be right. He could not be educated at Hogwarts, or he’d pose a threat to the other students. Suppressed magic was drastically different than the kind of magic they were familiar with. From the beginning, it lacked the fundamental freedom needed to wield magic properly. It was Newt’s duty—maybe their duty—to peel back the damage, if only to help Credence understand that he was not wicked because of who he was.

Just as Tina had been tasked overseas by MACUSA, Newt was preparing their return to London, believing city life would not be a bother to Credence after being brought up in New York’s streets. There was pressure to turn in his manuscript, and perhaps a need for a routine life that Credence could take to. They sort of made the move to the city altogether: Tina had written them that she’d been sent on assignment only a few weeks after they’d settled into a very narrow terraced house on the uphill curve of a quiet street. 

She stays in a cramped hotel on MACUSA’s dime, and visits often. 

But today is a Saturday, a day she is free from any of the ambassadorial work she has been sent here for. Ordinarily, she’d wake early and ring the bell of their little house just in time for tea. This particular Saturday, however, is not ordinary by any means, for it is Credence’s seventeenth birthday.

They take breakfast together, and Newt declares he has a few errands to see to in Diagon Alley. They are all eager for an outing; London is beginning to warm, snow melting into brownish piles around the gutters, sun peeking through still-bare trees. Owls chirp at their posts, peddlers push carts, and Diagon Alley is just as wondrous and lively as she remembers from her visit last winter.

Newt must visit the bank, so they decide—or Tina suggests—they venture around, and he will meet up with them in an hour or so.

Neither she nor Credence are very familiar with the twisting labyrinth of narrow streets, but they find a few things to entertain themselves. He is awed by the colors of the horned owls outside Eeylops, and she even catches him eyeing a racing broom through the window of the next shop. She buys a new bottle of ink and a stack of premeasured parchment to write to Queenie, something she has meant to do but failed miserably thus far.

He is stone quiet, and she checks several times to make sure she hasn’t lost him in the crowds. There is very little conversation she can think of to start between them. She thinks it would be for naught anyways, since his answers to any question asked of him are usually short and murmured beneath his breath as if he’d rather not like to be heard. 

But still she tries. 

“How are you liking London?” she asks.

“Its like New York,” he says, “But…better.”

She smiles. “Yes. I agree. People are friendlier, but much less keen on being bothered.”

He nods at her, a glimmer of a smile in his eyes. 

“The countryside was nice.” He almost whispers it, and if she wasn’t shoved close to his shoulder by passing pedestrians, she wouldn’t have heard. She’s a little shocked to hear him speak first. He does with Newt, but sometimes she got the impression that women intimidated Credence. She doesn’t blame him. She and her sister had had a tough caretaker growing up… Not nearly as harsh as Mary Lou Barebone, but all the same.

A sweet shop is next on their path, and she decides it would be a nice reprieve from the tension of two unfamiliar people stuck in an unfamiliar crowd, and an excuse to get to know him a little better by letting him pick out something he’d like.

She gathers a handful of licorice wands for herself, and a pair of cauldron cakes for Newt. But when Credence comes to meet her in a quieter part of the shop, he’s holding a single chocolate bar.

“Is that all you’d like? Are you sure?” she asks.

He holds the candy aloft, looking uncertain. Did she expect him to choose something else too? Or something different? She watches the gears turn in his mind, notices how he shrinks away just the tiniest bit.

“That’s alright,” she amends quickly, reaching out to touch his arm. A case filled with piles and piles of treats catches her eye, past the displays of pre-packaged candies. 

Briefly, she thinks back to Jacob’s bakery, now proudly sparkling on 32nd Street back home, stocked with fresh Niffler- and Erumpent-shaped pastries. 

“Let’s pick something for each of us from there,” she says, stepping forward. “Come and look.”

In the end, it is more Tina’s decision, as Credence just nods along with whatever she points at. She supposes she could settle for at least that kind of communication for now. It is a start.

They leave with a pair of yellow and lime-green spotted macaroons, which would taste to each person differently according to his or her preferences. They find a bench near the bank, close to where they’d parted ways with Newt, and sit to wait.

She munches into hers first and passes the other tiny treat to him.

“Mmmm…Queenie’s apple pie. Gosh, its even warm. What’s yours?”

Credence takes a tiny bite, tongue poking out to catch the wayward crumbs at the corner of his mouth. “Spiced oranges,” he tells her, smiling shyly.

She reaches, giving his shoulder a tender squeeze. He looks at her, really looks. Right into her eyes. Its shocking, but Tina doesn’t flinch. She just smiles back. Silently, she wishes for all the world that he could understand how much he is cared for. How he has become quite the companion to Newt (and Merlin knows he has needed one). She opens her mouth to ask about Modesty, if she has written, how she is enjoying Ilvermorny, but there he is, the aforementioned wizard, with a brown paper package in one hand and a sack of Boom Berries in the other.

“Ah, there you are. Been to Sugarplum’s, I see.”

He presents the package the Credence, with a proud smile. “Happy birthday, Credence.”

The boy takes the package, and runs a palm over it tentatively. As if he is unsure. Tina wonders if he has ever received a present before. He tears away the paper with careful fingers and finds a sleek, leatherbound copy of Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling. 

It’s the first smile he gives that isn’t at the ground, instead given directly to Newt, teeth and all. “Thank you,” he says, full and happy. Tina thinks she might’ve never heard his real voice until now. Its different than quiet mumbles. It carries many tones, many emotions with it that the boy isn’t quite sure how to manage. He stands, clutching the book to his chest and reaches for what might’ve been a handshake, but the hand falls back to his side. Instead, Newt reaches to grasp the boy’s shoulder firmly, a paternal, platonic, friendly sort of gesture that has Tina pondering even as they return home for supper and after Credence goes up to his room to read.

“Why that book?” she asks, catching a mug of tea that floats towards her from the kitchen. Newt is leaning on one arm of the sofa, staring into the bright, curling flames in the fireplace. His hand rests on one of her ankles, her legs stretched along the empty space between them.

“Sorry?” He breaks easily from whatever he’d been pondering, and looks at her, then down to where his hand rests. 

“Why’d you choose that book? For Credence’s present?”

“He’s already devoured my entire collection,” he says, grinning faintly. “He’s very interested in why magic works. The mechanics of it. I thought it might be a good start.”

She nods, sips her tea, feels his hand slide ever-so-slightly up her calve, shifting the leg of her trousers up just a fraction of an inch.

She tries not to jump, but catches the way he’s watching his own movements with extreme focus.

“He’s…happy, I think.”

“Yes,” she replies.

“He’s been happier…with you here.” He blinks. “That is…he’s never smiled, until you arrived.”

“He’s figuring you out. Figuring me out. Figuring himself out. Its nothing I did special.”

He hums a little, mouth quirking slightly with something unsaid. “How long are you meant to be here? In England, I mean,” he says finally, now toying with the hem of her pants, grasping a loose thread that tickles the air.

“It was only supposed to be a few months.” She tries to meet his eyes, tilting her face so its angled level with his. Sometimes she still can’t quite get into his head. It frustrates her a little.

“Could you…ask for an extension? Or something?” Its mumbled, and the words tumble like he doesn’t know how to put them together, but she’s exactly certain she knows what he’s asking.

She moves, crossing her legs under herself, leaning closer to him. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He glances to her, holds her gaze. “I would very much like if you could…stay.”

“Me too,” she says, blinking at the moisture growing behind her lashes. She laughs, to hide the fact that she’s doe-eyed, or maybe because of it. She doesn’t know, doesn’t care, because Newt leans in to press his lips to hers, and she tucks her face into the crook of his neck, unimaginable warmth pulsing through every part of her.

It would be like a little family, she thinks, and sends an owl for a conference with Piquery the next morning when she arrives at work.

**Author's Note:**

> ( tumblr: @allscissorsallpaper )


End file.
